Anyway, yesterday evening I was talking with a friend of mine and he mentioned a movie he had seen when he was a kid that involved a man getting trapped on a phone booth and what came of it: he could not get out, no matter how hard he tried; a group of onlookers started to form around him until it got to a crowd; eventually, a truck with a crane transported the man back to a sort of phone booth junkyard, with lots of people still trapped in them and some of them dead.

Fascinating, right? That's what I thought, too. Oh, and the movie is italian and he thinks it's probably from the Politico wave of Italian filmmaking that proliferated in the 70's.

In high school our English teacher showed us this short film, that I think may have been from a TV series. It starred Randy Quaid and Vincent Schiavelli in an adaptation of a short story. A group of miners in the old west end up with a baby they have to take care of. At the end, the baby falls in the river and Quaid jumps in to save it but fails and the baby drowns. As far as I can tell this isn't listed on either imdb profile.

The film is actually Spanish, directed by Antonio Mercero, and is called The Telephone Box (La Cabina, 1972) - BBC2 in Britain showed it a surprising number of times as a late-night filler, so quite a few people have similarly vague memories to your friend.

Here's the IMDB entry - but there doesn't seem to be a DVD release. If I remember rightly, dialogue is so minimal as to be completely unimportant, so if an unsubtitled copy turns up it's probably worth a punt.

There was a similar thread where someone wanted us to help him find a childhood movie. The thread title was too specific for anyone to reasonably remember it as, or for it to be a general, "help me find a movie" thread.

Well, as long as we're official... Here's the one that's been bugging me since I was, oh, 8 years old or so...

I think it's a camp -- as in "Meatballs," not "Pink Flamingos" -- movie from the 1970s, and Jackie Earle Haley might have been in it. All I remember is a scene along a dirt road in the woods where all the kids are gathered, with buckets in their hands, if I remember right, and are chanting, "FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!" I think there's something about pranking a rival camp involved in this scenario, but that's it, unfortunately. It weirded me out as a kid, and still does now.

Can't help either of you, Jason and jesus, but I do have my own murky recollection to toss out there in the hopes that someone can help.

This one's been bugging me since I was probably 8, about 15 years ago. It's likely an episode of some 80s or very early 90s television series or miniseries, maybe something along the lines of Amazing Stories or Eerie, Indiana. The only scene I can really remember is of some schoolkids removing a road barrier in front of an open pit and the teacher/professor they despise riding his bike or walking into it and falling to his death. These days, I have the feeling that it might not have been a teacher, but perhaps just an educated adult, and I believe he was distracted by a book, thus permitting him to walk or ride right into the hole without noticing it.

I've been trying to remember the name of a Russian film, shown on UK TV in the 80s, about a teenage boy who is recruited by the police. It ends with a chase across a rooftop in which his girlfriend slips and falls. The fall is shown in a strange subjective slo-mo shot. I remember being very impressed by the film at the time.

I'm really happy this is here, because over time there have been a few things I've asked about in different places, but never could find someone who could help me.

I actually have two:

First, this is a silent I saw probably in the early 1980s. It's a western, and a bit of a comedy - there's a scene where someone (I'm guessing the hero) rides off a cliff and you see him and his horse do a little loop-de-loo in the air then land on the other side. From what I remember, a little wacky and a little unexpected.

The second is a *very* independent film I saw probably in the late 1980s, and probably in a museum. A woman comes from a Muslim country to marry a rich man in Brooklyn (arranged marriage). Life's okay, although she's at home all the time, until one day, through a mistake, her husband is killed. (I can describe the death, but it's actually a little strange in this day and age.) Traditional customs would have her marry another man, but she's actually now wealthy, so she starts exploring the location and starts learning about herself. In the end, the family thinks she's on a plane going back home to continue her old life, and she's actually standing by the runway, watching the plane take off, still in the US and still her own woman.

I'd really like to see this and see how it plays today - as I said, it's a different world today.

I only caught the last 20 minutes or so of this Soviet film, but it was completely mindblowing: it seemed to be an ostern of some sort, set in some remote village, filmed very suspiciously like a spaghetti western. But this final sequence involved an epic shootout, and I seem to remember there being some sort of operatic music and some sort of horrifying supernatural element (vampires?). And a lot of wind. And the film ended with the town being set on fire.

For what it's worth, I saw it in a hotel room in Novgorod, didn't understand a lot of the Russian (I had only studied the language for two years at that point, and certainly hadn't come across the word for 'vampire' or whatever supernatural creature was featured in this film).

Anyway, the only clue I have is that at the end we got a single title card: "Konyets (The End) - Mosfilm 1980." I think it was 1980, at least. I've looked up Mosfilm films from the late 70s and early 80s but most IMDB entries of Soviet genre films aren't nearly complete enough for me to figure out what the hell this movie could be.

Scene cut to loud, driving music (punk rock?). Couple goes into a grocery and shoplifts, stuffs food in their coat, etc. When they get to the checkout counter, their only purchase is a roll of toilet paper.

Scene cut to loud, driving music (punk rock?). Couple goes into a grocery and shoplifts, stuffs food in their coat, etc. When they get to the checkout counter, their only purchase is a roll of toilet paper.

Ringing any bells? Anyone?

Not definite, but the bell it rings is The Third Generation. Unfortunately I haven't got the DVD to check, but somebody should.

Kinsayder wrote:I've been trying to remember the name of a Russian film, shown on UK TV in the 80s, about a teenage boy who is recruited by the police. It ends with a chase across a rooftop in which his girlfriend slips and falls. The fall is shown in a strange subjective slo-mo shot. I remember being very impressed by the film at the time.

Again, no way of verifying, and I don't recall some of the details you do, but Freedom Is Paradise might be a contender. I seem to remember some rooftop action, anyway. I also thought of Bodrov's later I Wanted to See Angels, which is less likely, but Bodrov might be a candidate anyway - I haven't seen any of his other 80s work, though.

Kinsayder wrote:I've been trying to remember the name of a Russian film, shown on UK TV in the 80s, about a teenage boy who is recruited by the police. It ends with a chase across a rooftop in which his girlfriend slips and falls. The fall is shown in a strange subjective slo-mo shot. I remember being very impressed by the film at the time.

Again, no way of verifying, and I don't recall some of the details you do, but Freedom Is Paradise might be a contender. I seem to remember some rooftop action, anyway. I also thought of Bodrov's later I Wanted to See Angels, which is less likely, but Bodrov might be a candidate anyway - I haven't seen any of his other 80s work, though.

I've found it now. It was Plumbum, or The Dangerous Game. One of the early perestroika movies, with a strong message about the perils of idealism. I'd love to see it again.

An animated film that I'm quite sure was British. It begins with a scene in a big cavern, and the bad guy in the film, a squat guy dressed in black, is yelling something reverbed out to an army of bats. I wish I could draw you a picture. Most certainly of that "Thames" animation style. It's probably something retardedly obvious like Yellow Submarine . . .

I watched this film many times with my best friend in, oh, the 2nd grade or thereabouts, in the basement of his house. Have wondered about it for many years.

There's a scene where a family is driving down a deserted highway, when a car coming in the opposite direction runs them off the road. The car flips over, and everyone but one guy manages to get out (I don't recall why he was stuck, but he was). The car leaks gas and catches fire, and the trapped guy burns to death in front of the other passengers.

The guys who ran them off the road return, and one of the passengers from the crashed car tells them he's calling the police as as soon as he gets a chance. One of the guys from the other car says, "I ain't going to jail" and hits him with a baseball bat. They force the other passengers into their car and drive down the road.

Here's one: When I was a kid, MuchMusic Canada aired a film a couple of times that was a rockumentary spoof that was pretty mucha direct ripoff of Spinal Tap except it revolved around a band called Bad News. I remember liking it as a kid (particularly their signature song, "Band Called Bad News") but I have no idea what it was called. I've tried IMDB and come up empty. I had taped it onto VHS but since lost it and wouldn't mind tracking down a bootleg copy if possible but I need to know the name!

Antoine Doinel wrote:Here's one: When I was a kid, MuchMusic Canada aired a film a couple of times that was a rockumentary spoof that was pretty mucha direct ripoff of Spinal Tap except it revolved around a band called Bad News. I remember liking it as a kid (particularly their signature song, "Band Called Bad News") but I have no idea what it was called. I've tried IMDB and come up empty. I had taped it onto VHS but since lost it and wouldn't mind tracking down a bootleg copy if possible but I need to know the name!

Anybody have a clue?

Yup - it's the Comic Strip's Bad News Tour (1983) - though it's not a rip-off (unless Adrian Edmondson was psychic) as it actually predated This Is Spinal Tap by a year. Channel 4 first aired it on 24 January 1983.

There was also a sequel, More Bad News (1988), though by then Spinal Tap had completely stolen Bad News' thunder.